Chinese jets enter Taiwan airspace during US spy balloon tensions

Nearly two dozen Chinese military planes and warships were detected in the Taiwan Strait on Monday — and 11 of Beijing’s aircraft crossed the median line separating the two countries, Taiwan’s defense ministry said.

The intrusion into the buffer zone happened after the US Navy and Marines announced on Saturday that they were conducting joint military exercises in the South China Sea.

Relations between Washington and Beijing have become even more strained after a Chinese spy balloon flew over much of the United States mainland earlier this month before being downed by a US Air Force fighter jet off the South Carolina coast. 

The US shot down three more unknown objects — Friday off Alaska, Saturday over the Yukon Territory in Canada and Sunday over Lake Huron — but their origins have yet to be determined. 

The Navy’s 7th Fleet, based in Japan, announced Saturday that the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group and the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit were holding “strike force operations” in the South China Sea. The exercises involve ships, ground forces and aircraft, the service said in a statement without indicating when the drills began or when they will finish. 

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On Monday, the Taiwan Ministry of National Defense said it had detected 18 People’s Liberation Army planes in the Taiwan Strait, and that 11 of them had crossed the median line and entered the country’s southwest air defense identification zone. Four Chinese ships were also identified near Taiwan.

The self-ruled island country has been reporting near-daily sightings of Chinese aircraft and ships in the waters around Taiwan. China claims virtually the entire South China Sea and strongly objects to military activity by other nations in the contested waterway through which $5 trillion in goods are shipped every year.

The US takes no official position on sovereignty over the South China Sea, but maintains that freedom of navigation and overflight must be preserved. Several times a year, it sends ships sailing past fortified Chinese outposts in the Spratly Islands, prompting protests from Beijing.

China views Taiwan as a breakaway territory, and President Xi Jinping has talked repeatedly about reunifying the island nation with mainland China — and has not ruled out using military force to do so. The US “one China” policy on Taiwan acknowledges China’s claims, but takes no position on them.

Relations between the US and China, already on the rocks over Taiwan and China’s increased military aggressiveness in the South China Sea, were compounded by the Chinese spy balloon — which sailed over a number of sensitive military installations, including missile defense facilities and nuclear weapon sites before it was shot down.  

The diplomatic row over the balloon led Secretary of State Antony Blinken to abruptly postpone a planned visit to Beijing, where he was expected to meet with Xi in an effort to discuss repairing the frayed relations between the two countries.

While China claimed the balloon was used to collect meteorological data and was blown off course, US officials said the orb was outfitted with sophisticated sensors and devices that would allow it to collect intelligence data. 

With Post wires